


Leave Them To Bleed

by Smokestarrules



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, Gen, SO, Smile is still one of my absolute favorite songs ever so that's where the title's from, also this does technically happen a bit differently in canon, and Ilia is just so tragic she hurts me, but I changed it so that she turns red in this instead, it's just..... so Good, poor bby, she says she turns blue when she sees that her parents are dead in the Blake V4 short, theres that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24277807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smokestarrules/pseuds/Smokestarrules
Summary: Ilia’s thoughts and feelings as her parents die, she finds someone who helps her, and then she meets Blake.
Relationships: Ilia Amitola & Ghira Belladonna, Ilia Amitola/Blake Belladonna - one-sided -
Kudos: 4





	Leave Them To Bleed

_ Leave Them To Bleed _

  
She’s in the cafeteria when it happens. 

There’s TV monitors in the cafeteria because of course there are; Atlas people can’t seem to go three minutes without a brush with technology. Ilia may be one of them now, but that’s something she’d never gotten into the habit of.

She’s with her friends, of course, and they’re all joking about something that Ilia doesn’t really find funny. That’s the usual thing, though, so she just smiles and laughs and plays the part.

Because one day, she’ll be a famous Atlas soldier, or even a General, and she’ll be able to buy her parents an actual  _ house,  _ instead of the shack they live in right now and everything will be better. Because one day, maybe they won’t be discriminated against. Maybe they’ll be equals. Maybe  _ she’ll  _ start that, when she’s a General. If she becomes one  _ before  _ revealing herself as a Faunus, they’ll  _ have  _ to think she’s still capable, regardless of her species. 

Her plan is flawless.

“Ilia,” one of her friends, a blonde named Elisa, is calling her. “Where are you, Ilia?”

“In my head,” Ilia admits with an embarrassed smile. “Sorry. What do you need?” Her words still feel floppy in her mouth a bit with the Atlesian accent, but she’s gotten better than when she first started. 

“Just asking your opinion. What do  _ you  _ think about the lower life-forms living in Mantle?” Elisa doesn’t mean anything by the question, Ilia knows, but she also knows this is  _ dangerous  _ ground for her to be talking about.

“Umm..” For a moment, Ilia doesn’t know what to say at all. But she decides to be honest with them, at least as much as she’s allowed. “I think we shouldn’t call them lower life-forms. It’s not their fault Atlas rose up and overtook Mantle. I don’t think the people in Mantle live very good lives, either. I think it’s sad.”

“You have an interesting way of looking at it,” one of the other girls says. Ilia can’t remember her name. “So you, what, think everyone should be equal?” The table lets out a flurry of giggles and Ilia resists the urge to turn into a flustered pink. “That’s a bit ridiculous, isn’t it? Those are fairytale thoughts.”

“I- I guess,” Ilia mutters to the table, curbed for the moment. She tunes out for a few minutes, slowly picking at her lunch as the rest of her friends talk amongst themselves. 

She’s so focused on her food that she nearly doesn’t notice the shout that goes around the lunchroom from the boys’ side, “QUIET!” She looks up; two boys are standing on a table across the room, shouting at everybody to shut up. 

After a few moments of arguments, the room falls silent. Now the only sound throughout the area is coming from the four TV's on the wall, which are all turned to the same channel. Everyone focuses on them, and Ilia goes rigid with fear as she reads the headline.

**SDC’s West Dust Mine Exploded! 30 Confirmed Dead; 55 Missing. Estimated, No Survivors.**

The West Dust Mine was where her parents worked. 

She distantly realizes that everyone around her, and she herself are all standing up, and she sits back down heavily, needing something to stabilize her for a second. She doesn’t turn blue. She doesn’t know how to feel, and so she doesn’t turn  _ anything.  _

Her parents are  _ dead.  _ Her eyes slide shut.

“Ilia!” It’s Elisa, tugging at her shoulder with a wide smile. Everything seems out of focus. “Get back up here!” She tugs Ilia to her feet, and Ilia wobbles, but manages to stay upright. She looks around. People are pointing at the TV’s and are sneering at it, but she doesn’t hear what they’re saying until Elisa’s speaking again. “This is why we can’t all be equal, Ilia,” she says through a bout of laughter. Ilia can’t feel her face. “Faunus are too  _ stupid  _ to be our equals! It’s probably best they aren’t there anymore, they could’ve hurt someone  _ important!” _

Ilia’s read the term ‘seeing red’ in books before, but she doesn’t think it’d ever been as appropriate as it is now.

Ilia  _ sees  _ red, all she  _ feels  _ is red, and then, just a second later, she  _ is  _ red. 

Dark, deep red borne from fury is covering her skin, her scales, and although she can’t see her own eyes, she knows they’ve also changed to a flaming blue color. Screams erupt from the people closest to her, including Elisa, who stumbles back a couple steps from fear. Gone is the girl whom Ilia thought was nice, a good friend. Instead there is only someone who  _ laughed  _ at the fact that almost a hundred people were  _ dead.  _

Ilia knows she’s obviously blown her cover, but she doesn’t care anymore. She was doing this for her parents, and they’re gone now. 

“Y-you’re a Faunus?” Elisa cries, her wide green eyes full with terror. 

Ilia doesn’t see her green eyes. She doesn’t see her golden air. All she sees is  _ red, red, red,  _ and before anyone could do anything, before Elisa can step out of the way, she pulls back and socks the girl square in the jaw. 

She feels things break, and she’s sure it was her hand before she pulls away and sees Elisa’s mouth spurting blood. The other girl lets out a cry of pain, and that seems to snap everyone else out of their stupor. 

Ilia runs. 

She manages to make it out of the school and into the freezing Atlas air when she realizes she has nowhere to go. 

Elisa’s blood is still on her hand. Ilia’s her normal color now, but she knows it won’t be like that for long, and she can’t change out  _ here,  _ in the streets of Atlas. She makes her way underneath someone’s porch to grieve silently and to let her skin do whatever it wants for a while. 

She sits there for  _ hours.  _ She doesn’t cry. She just sits, staring at the snow on the ground.

It feels far away, but she eventually realizes she’s shivering. Ilia blinks, suddenly registering his  _ cold  _ she is. Her skin, no longer sweeping through many different emotions, is now tinted an icy blue. She has to get out of here.

Ilia steals a fluffy coat someone’s foolishly left on their porch and manages to sneak past the ticketmen to get onto a train headed to Mantle. It’s warm in there, and not many Atlesian nobles would ever go to Mantle, so it’s fairly empty. She wraps herself up in her new coat and watches through the window for the entire ride. 

She doesn’t really know where she’s going. 

When the train stops at Mantle, she debates just staying on, but ultimately decides she wants to go home. 

She doesn’t think about how there will be no one there to greet her. 

The city seems to be in a state of mourning. There are no faunus children playing outside in the snow, no friendly neighbors waving through screen doors, no warm glow of fires throughout the streets. The place looks almost desolate. Ilia wonders how many more families are going to die without whoever they’d lost from the cave-in to work. Surely the mines will start up again, but it may take weeks, or even months. By then a lot of people will have starved.

She reaches her house and opens the door with shaking fingers.

It looks exactly the same as it did when she last saw it.

Ilia makes it three steps into the house before she breaks down again. Finally feeling the extent of her parents’ deaths, she lets herself cry.

She doesn’t know how long she stays there, curled up in the corner of the main room, but it’s the next morning before she emerges from the massive coat, her stomach growling. There’s not much food in the pantry but it’s not like anyone else is going to be eating it, so Ilia doesn’t care much when she pours some cereal for herself. There’s not any milk, so she just decides to eat it dry. As she eats, she hears someone knocking on a neighbors door. It doesn’t sound like anyone answers whoever it is, and after a moment, she hears footsteps coming towards her parents’ house.

The person knocks, and even though Ilia had been expecting it, she still flinches at the loud noise. She’d been planning to pretend no one was home, but too late she realizes her slight movement would’ve been seen from the screen door. 

“Who is it?” She asks, creeping closer to the door. Her voice nearly cracks in the middle from misuse, but she doesn’t let it.  _ Don’t seem weak.  _

“My name is Ghira Belladonna,” the person says, with a gruff, intimidating voice. “I’ve come to help families of faunus who lost their lives in the cave-in.” There’s a shuffle of pages, as if he’s looking at files or something. “This is the house of.. Mazon and Azure Amitola, correct?”

At the sound of her parents names Ilia tears up again, but she forces the feelings down. “Not anymore,” she says firmly. “Go away.”

Another sound of pages turning, and then a quiet  _ hmm.  _ “...You wouldn’t happen to be Ilia, would you?”

She falters. “Yes, I am,” she says, after a moment of hesitation. “And this is my house now.  _ Go away.” _

“Miss Amitola, listen to me.” The man’s voice is thick with urgency. “If your parents were both working at the mine when it collapsed, that means you know they’re both dead. Because of that, Atlas officials  _ will  _ be coming here to take the house and anything that is left inside it. You will be sent somewhere far worse than Mantle if you stay here.”

“But-“ Ilia couldn’t believe this was happening. The last twenty-four hours seemed like some horrible nightmare. “But it’s  _ my  _ house now! Why are they taking it?”

“To pay off your parents’ remaining debt,” the man says gently. She hears him sigh. “Please. Just.. open the door, for starters.”

She didn’t see any other option. Her parents had told her never to open the door for a stranger, but they weren’t here anymore, and he had no reason to lie… right? 

She opens the door.

Outside, there’s a large, hairy man with kind gold eyes staring down at her. Emphasis on large; he’s  _ huge.  _ Ilia gulps, not even half the size of him. The man - Ghira, he said his name was - looks back and his eyes soften further as he realizes how young she is. 

“What do you want?” Ilia feels smaller than she ever had before in front of him. 

He sighs quietly, kneeling down to make eye contact with her. “I’m here to help,” he says. “Like I said, there  _ will  _ be Atlas officers coming here soon. Would you like to come with me?” 

“Where would we go?” Ilia can’t imagine leaving the house again, but if people from  _ Atlas  _ were coming…

“I’m finishing up here, so I would go home to Menagerie. You could live in my house for a little while, if you wanted. Have you ever been to Menagerie?” 

Wide-eyed, Ilia shakes her head. “My parents said it was a faunus paradise, but we never could have afforded to go there.” After hesitating, she adds, “would you really be okay with me in your house?”

“I have housed many faunus children before,” Ghira tells her with a small smile. “You are not the first, believe me. You’d be able to meet my daughter, Blake.” He pauses for a moment. “I know you’ve been through a lot more than anyone should at your age, but if you want to go, we will have to hurry.”

Ilia hesitates. On one hand, getting out of Atlas would feel like a dream come true. She’d always dreamt of leaving,  _ finally,  _ with her parents once she was grown-up and able to afford them a house somewhere far away from here. But to go without them…

“I’m coming,” she decides, then and there. “Just let me get some things from the house.”  


“Of course,” Ghira says, smiling at her. “Go ahead. I’ll be right here."

Ilia only grabs essentials. She hasn’t been in the house for a long time - Atlas prep schools took up most of the year - and so she’s not too attached to most things. That, and she’d left all of her own stuff back at the school. She does however take the rainbow shawl her mother had worn all the time and her father’s favorite book - one he’d read to her hundreds of times - Beauty and the Beast. 

“Ready?” Ghira is waiting for her at the doorway when she appears again, carrying just one sag of things to save. He doesn’t ask what they are. He also doesn’t seem confused as to why she’s not grieving the loss of her parents. Perhaps he knows that she will, but there’s too much going on now.

Maybe he understands grief more than she knows.

Ilia squares her shoulders; looks back at her childhood home for the last time. “I’m ready.”

  
\---

It’s ages before she changes color again, at least that she knows of. After her parents’ deaths she just feels..  _ dull  _ all the time. Even with the amount of kindness and love the Belladonna family is showing her.

It’s Blake who triggers it, because of course it’s Blake, Blake is  _ everything.  _

She meets Blake on the third day of knowing Ghira. He’d managed to pull some strings and get an airship to fly them out of Atlas and into Menagerie to get there quicker, and Ilia sometimes wondered if it was because he wanted to get her somewhere safe the fastest he could. The thought warms her a little. 

The flight itself had only taken about half a day, but it was near midnight by the time Ghira and Ilia made it to Kuo Kuana, and, therefore, everyone living in his house was already asleep. 

Ghira has showed her to her room and promised to introduce her in the morning.

And so that’s where she is now, shifting uncomfortably as Kali Belladonna - Ghira’s wife - hugs her so tight you’d think they were old friends. Ilia isn’t sure she can breathe.

“It’s just so lovely to meet you, dear,” Kali pulls back from the hug but keeps one of Ilia’s hands clasped between her own. “Ghira’s told me about you. It’ll be an absolute delight to have you here with us for a while!”

“Er- thank you, Mrs. Belladonna,” Ilia says, not too good at talking but her old Atlas instincts kicking in. “I hope I’m not too much of a bother.”

“Nonsense,” Ghira cuts in from behind Kali. He places a hand gently on his wife’s shoulder. “You’re our guest, Ilia, there’s no bother at all.” Ilia has noticed that Ghira seems to speak nearly as formal as she does, and she wonders about his own upbringing. She smiles at him, still a bit stiff, but trying, and he smiles back. 

There’s a sudden crash of pots and pans coming from the kitchen, and Ghira’s soft expression melts into one of loving irritation. “That’ll be Blake, then,” he says to Ilia. “She’s just run into the stove because she was reading a book while walking. Come, I’ll introduce you.”

Swallowing, Ilia follows the large man towards the kitchen where a cat faunus, much like Kali, is sitting on the floor rubbing her head. There’s two pots on the floor alongside her, and as Ghira had said, a book lies down there as well.

Ghira lets out a sigh. “Blake, dear,” he says, getting his daughter’s attention. Blake doesn’t look much older than Ilia. “This is Ilia Amitola. She’ll be staying with us for a little while.”

Flushing at being caught in such an odd position, Blake scrambles to her feet to come and greet Ilia. “Heh, sorry. Hi, I’m Blake.” She smiles a small,  _ beautiful  _ smile as she reaches for Ilia’s hand to shake and Ilia meets her eyes and her brain abruptly short-circuits and the world  _ stops. _

At least, that’s what it feels like.

Ilia can move, can’t even breathe. All she can see is  _ gold.  _ Blake’s eyes are warm and inviting and the prettiest yellow color she’s ever seen in her life.

She’s silent for two seconds too long, and Blake’s face creases in confusion. “It was Ilia, right?” She tries. 

Somehow, Ilia manages to come back to herself. “Yes!” She blurts, perhaps a little too loudly, giving Blake’s hand a firm shake while trying to not dwell on the warmth of her palm  _ or  _ look her directly in the eye. “It’s good to meet you.”

“And you.” Blake smiles again, and it feels like Ilia’s heart might give out already. 

Ghira, who Ilia had forgotten was also in the room, steps forward. “Why don’t you show Ilia around while your mother and I make breakfast? I didn’t have a chance to give her the tour last night.”

“Sure,” Blake shrugs and blinks warmly at Ilia, who’s still struggling not to swallow her tongue. “This way.”

Despite their somewhat awkward first meeting, Ilia and Blake get along extremely well. They’re both kinda quiet, but immediately there’s a connection between them, and Ilia thinks it doesn’t seem as uncomfortable for them to sit in silence as it does with anyone else. For some reason, Blake is special.

Ilia falls head-over-heels as quickly as the fourth day. 

And that’s how it starts.

In the back of her mind, Ilia knows she hasn’t turned colors since the day her parents died. None of the Belladonna’s even  _ know  _ what her Faunus trait is. But she doesn’t like to think about that; so she shoves the thought back down deep every time it floats to the surface. She doesn’t have to talk about the things that hurt, does she? Can’t she just keep ignoring it? Maybe she won’t have ever change color again. She could be happy with that, right? Happy just  _ being  _ with Blake and and the Belladonna’s.

It’s four days later, at breakfast, when it happens.

Blake arrives downstairs later than usual, and by the time she walks into the kitchen, Ghira, Kali, and Ilia are already starting to eat.

She greets them with a polite, “good morning,” and receives similar mumbles from the half-awake table. Another thing in common Ilia shares with the Belladonna’s;  _ none  _ of them are morning people.

Blake makes her plate quietly and comes over to the table to sit down with the rest of them. She sets her plate down and sits; looking up towards Ilia and opens her mouth to speak, but freezes.

Ilia’s forehead furrows. “What?”

“Your eyes are  _ grey?”  _ Blake’s voice is  _ loud,  _ probably louder than she’d meant it to be, and Ghira and Kali look up from their food, curious at the commotion.

Bewildered, Ilia says, “....yes. Why?” 

Blake’s face is pinched with too much confusion for this to be a joke. “I thought they were pink!” She exclaims, raising one eyebrow. “I’ve never seen them  _ grey.” _

“What are you talking about?” Ghira spoke up. “Her eyes have always been grey.”

“But-“ Blake looks like she thinks she’s going crazy. “You had  _ pink eyes just yesterday!” _

And  _ oh,  _ Ilia might know where the confusion came from. At the realization, her entire body threatens to turn pink, but she forces it back down. ...is that what happened when she had a crush? Blake was her first, she knew, but she hadn’t been expecting this! And besides, if that  _ is  _ the cause, she can’t very well tell  _ Blake  _ that, especially with her parents here as well!

“Oh,” Ilia says, giving herself a little more time to think of an excuse. “That’s my faunus trait.” She stretches out her arm and makes the freckles on it fade to a dull green. “...sometimes my eyes change color without me knowing.” Which  _ was  _ true, it just wasn’t the  _ whole  _ truth.

Perfect.

“That’s a very impressive trait,” Ghira compliments, nodding in approval. “Can you control what color you change?”

Ilia scratches the back of her neck, a bit uncomfortable with so much attention. “Sometimes I can,” she tells him, pointedly turning her hands a deep teal color. Blake “oohs”. “But sometimes when I get too emotional, they change without my knowing.”

“That makes sense,” Kali nods. “Does that happen often?” 

Ilia goes quiet for a second as she remembers the last time it had. “Not very often, no,” she says, after a moment. “Just in some particular circumstances.” She clearly doesn't want to talk about it, and Blake sees to pick up on that, swiftly steering the conversation away to their day plans.

It isn't until Ilia and Blake are sitting quietly in Ghira’s study, later, that Blake asks. They've been in there for a few hours now, because Ghira’s study and office has the best books and chairs in the entire house, but Ilia’s been expecting the question. Blake had stopped actually reading minutes ago.

“Hey, Ilia?” She begins softly. “I never asked, but.. you live with us because you have no one else, right?”

Ilia blinks at her, but Blake’s avoiding her gaze. She hopes her eyes aren't turning blue. “Yes,” she says simply. She wants to be direct, but she also treads carefully. The last thing she wants is to make Blake upset with her.

Blake takes a deep breath. “Do you want to talk about it?” She asks. It's very clearly a question, and Ilia appreciates that she knows Blake won't push if she doesn't want her to.

Ilia turns away. “Not yet,” she says, honestly. “Maybe later.”

Blake smiles at her gently, making Ilia’s stomach turn. “Okay. I'm here if you need to talk, though.”

“Thanks, Blake,” Ilia says, unable to fight the small smile that springs to her face as she watches the other girl. 

“Anytime,” Blake declares, grinning. “I'll always be there for you, Ilia, okay?”

And Ilia just smiles.  _ Always.  _

_ Always  _ sounded good.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> so yeah Blake may seem a bit OOC but remember this is before she's even MET Adam so she's just a happy girl right now. (And because the thought that Blake BA (Before Adam) is just a bby cinnamon roll warms my heart)
> 
> And because Ilia deserves some good soft!Blake before all the pain she gets in canon happens.


End file.
